Colon Finishes Perfect Season with 1st Title
November 23, 2019
By Ryan Stieg
Special for Second Half
MARQUETTE – It was a long trip for the Colon football team, driving all the way from near the Ohio border to the Upper Peninsula for the MHSAA Division 1 8-Player Final
But the Magi made the journey worthwhile.
Behind solid defensive play and the running of fullback Brandon Crawford – who finished with 205 rushing yards – Colon defeated Suttons Bay 26-14 to win its first Finals championship.
Colon head coach Robbie Hattan credited his defense and some thorough conditioning for pushing the Magi over the top. They intercepted four passes and returned one pick for a touchdown.
“In the regular season, our first team defense didn’t give up a point,” he said. “So we get to the playoffs and obviously, when you get to the playoffs, you play at a different level. So we gave up 12 points, 12 points, seven points. Our defense has been the strength of our team.”
“We condition so much,” he said. “During camp, we have different military branches come in to push our kids. We had the Navy SEALs, we had the Army Rangers, Air Force Special Ops. These kids were putting in the work. We figured it out, and we ran 168 miles this season. It’s nuts how much we’ve ran, but we do that and the kids know it. We call it Monday run day. So Monday practices are no fun, but they reaped the rewards tonight and we still had legs in the fourth.”
Even though Suttons Bay’s trip up north fell short, head coach Garrick Opie praised his team for giving everything it had right to the end.
“The great thing about my team and the great thing about our kids, they don’t give up and they never have,” he said. “I think we’ve seen games like Gaylord St. Mary’s and other games being won in the last minute, and I think we still think that way until the last second.
“The one thing that I said to our team was I wanted each player to leave with an empty tank, and they did. So that’s all I can ask for. They did phenomenal.”
Trying to maintain a slim one-point lead at the start of the third quarter, the Magi (13-0) made a huge play defensively. With the ball deep in Suttons Bay territory, Crawford intercepted a screen pass from his defensive lineman spot and ran it into the end zone. After the extra point, the Magi led 14-6.
After forcing a Colon punt, the Northmen answered on their third possession of the quarter. Quarterback Bryce Opie scrambled away from pressure and hit Hugh Periard with a 47-yard pass to the Colon 37. Later, on 4th-and-inches at the Magi 14, Opie sneaked up the middle to the 10. Two plays after that, he scored on a four-yard run. He also picked up the 2-point conversion, and the game was tied 14-14.
Before the end of the quarter, Colon used its rushing attack to march down the field. Crawford plowed his way from the Suttons Bay 43 to the 15, and three plays later quarterback Phillip Alva punched the ball into the end zone from the 1. However, a bad snap on the extra point forced the Magi to pass, and the throw was intercepted in the end zone.
Suttons Bay (12-1) wasn’t shaken though. A 31-yard run from Camryn Knaub helped the Northmen to the Colon 6. But on fourth down, Opie’s pass fell incomplete ,and Colon took over on downs. Just two plays later, Crawford rumbled down the Magi sideline for a 94-yard touchdown. The conversion failed and Colon led by 12 with 7:36 left.
Suttons Bay had one last real chance to get back in the game after blocking a Colon punt with about six minutes remaining, but Jonathan West ended the rally with another interception.
“They just kept trying to push me out of bounds and didn’t really try to tackle me, so I just kept my feet going,” Crawford said of his touchdown. “I think that and the interception by Jonathan were the turning point. Those really helped us.”
“Brandon is a heck of a football player,” Hattan said. “That kid is going to be playing college football someday. He loves having the ball in his hands in big situations. We know we can rely on him, and he really took care of business today.”
While the second half was a little more explosive, the first half was fairly quiet offensively. Colon got on the scoreboard first on its second possession of the game, on a Crawford 24-yard run. With the extra point, Colon led 7-0 with 7:31 to go in the first quarter.
After forcing a Magi punt early in the second quarter, the Northmen started to generate some offense. Opie picked up a first down on a run from the Suttons Bay 49 to the Colon 38, and two plays late a costly Magi penalty moved the ball to the 23. On the next play, Opie threw a pass into double coverage in the corner of the end zone, but Lucas Mikesell adjusted and made a leaping catch behind both Magi defenders for a touchdown. The extra point was blocked though, and Suttons Bay trailed 7-6 with 8:26 left in the half – and the score stayed the same heading into the break.
PHOTOS: (Top) Colon’s Brandon Crawford reaches for the end zone while a Suttons Bay defender attempts to prevent the score Saturday. (Middle) Suttons Bay quarterback Bryce Opie works to avoid Justin Miller’s rush. (Photos by Cara Kamps.)
Final-Seconds Field Goal Ends Defensive Stalemate, Delivers Gladwin's 1st Title
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
November 26, 2022
DETROIT – As Treyton Siegert warmed up with the kicking net on the Gladwin sideline late in the Division 5 Football Final on Saturday, he was kind of hoping it wouldn’t be necessary.
“I was just trying to focus on making good contact with the ball, and just hoping they would score a touchdown,” the junior kicker said. “I knew it would probably come to me.”
It did, and Siegert delivered with a 21-yard field goal from the right hash to give Gladwin a 10-7 win against Frankenmuth and its first MHSAA football title.
“It was a crazy moment,” Siegert said. “I never doubted it once we got up close enough, but it was just a crazy moment. I’m really speechless. It was awesome to have that feeling. … I wouldn’t have that opportunity without a team behind me. It was really a great moment.”
Siegert’s moment capped a defensive struggle between two unbeaten teams, each in search of a first Finals title. For Frankenmuth, it was the second trip to the Finals in three seasons. Gladwin, meanwhile, was making its first appearance in a Final, and it came just three seasons after the team went 1-8 to cap a four-year stretch during which it won seven games total.
The 1-8 season was the first for coach Marc Jarstfer and his staff. Two players who were on the field Saturday – receiver/safety Kaden McDonald and running back/linebacker Logan Kokotovich – played on the 1-8 team as freshmen.
“The culture,” McDonald said of what changed. “The culture was a huge thing. And the brotherhood. We worked out all the time and got after it in the offseason.”
Gladwin needed every bit of that culture and brotherhood to overcome a Frankenmuth team that had been building the same thing for decades.
With the game tied at 7 midway through the fourth quarter, it was the Flying Gs who found just a little bit more.
Senior quarterback Nick Wheeler connected with senior receiver Lucas Mead for a 43-yard gain down the sideline to put Gladwin at the Frankenmuth 28-yard line. Senior running back Earl Esiline then chipped away for 24 yards over the next five plays to set up Siegert’s game-winning field goal.
The junior soccer player left little doubt on it, too, smashing the kick through the middle of the uprights with two seconds remaining. That was only enough time for Frankenmuth to unsuccessfully attempt multiple laterals on the ensuing kickoff.
“I never doubted it for a second,” Jarstfer said of Siegert’s kick. “I was thinking of taking knees a little bit earlier to just ensure that we had that opportunity. Upstairs, on the phones, they were telling me to keep punching it and maybe we’ll break one through and we can seal the deal that way. I have a lot of trust and faith in him, and I’m glad he’s back for another year.”
The drive that set up the winning kick was a rare win for an offense in the game. It covered 74 yards, and Gladwin finished the game with 225 of total offense.
Frankenmuth, meanwhile, was held to 199 yards of offense, and 3.9 yards per play.
“Both defenses have been pretty sound all year,” Frankenmuth coach Phil Martin said. “I think both offenses probably left a little bit on the field that they would have liked to cash in on; I know we did. But again, I thought the kids played a whale of a smash-mouth football game. Small-town football in Division 5 is a lot of fun.”
The first offensive breakthrough didn’t come until late in the third quarter, when Frankenmuth junior Griffin Barker scored on a 2-yard run. He was helped with a push from behind by senior Brenden Marker, who had started as his lead blocker. The Frankenmuth drive covered 90 yards, and featured a 56-yard pass from senior quarterback Aidan Hoard to junior receiver Hunter Bernthal.
Gladwin immediately responded, putting together a four-play, 80-yard drive that ended with a 30-yard pass from Wheeler to McDonald.
The rare flash of offense wasn’t matched previously, nor after, until the game-winning drive.
Gladwin looked to have broken the deadlock on the first play of the second quarter, but a 55-yard touchdown run by Esiline was wiped off the board by an illegal formation penalty.
The Flying Gs did get into the red zone twice in the first half, but both trips came up empty. The first ended on downs at the Frankenmuth 16. The second ended with an incomplete pass on a fake field goal at the Frankenmuth 9.
“I just couldn’t be more thankful for the defense that I have on this team,” Hoard said. “They kept us in it the entire thing, and as the quarterback, seven points, that’s not really acceptable. We should have done a better job. The defense was what really kept us in it, and it was the main key of our team. That was our identity right there, a strong defensive team. All the way from the coaching staff to every player who played on the defensive side of the ball, I couldn’t be more proud of you guys.”
Hoard was 4 of 10 passing for 77 yards for the Eagles, while Barker led the rushing attack with 43 yards. Colin Main had nine tackles to lead Frankenmuth’s defense, while Dalton DeBeau added eight.
Wheeler had 123 yards on 7 of 15 passing, and Esiline led the Gladwin rushing attack with 67 yards. Mead had 81 yards on four catches. Esiline was the leading tackler for Gladwin with eight, while McDonald had seven.
PHOTOS (Top) Gladwin celebrates its first Finals championship Saturday at Ford Field. (Middle) The Flying Gs’ Lucas Mead (4) and Frankenmuth’s Will Soulliere (13) contend for a jump ball in the end zone. (Below) Mead (4) wraps up Frankenmuth’s Hunter Bernthal (3). (Click for more from Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)